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Comment by OuterVale | Hacker News Reader

The gripe many have against this legislation is that it is being rushed for no good reason.

It hasn't been clear how they intend to enforce this. Will it just be an "By using this service, I confirm I am 16 or older" clause like the current system? Will we be required to submit ID to social media companies (it's claimed not)? Will the government be making verification through the updated 'MyGov' portal or the newly renamed 'myID' 'digital passport'?

Nobody is sure, and nobody is sure who is sure. There is tons of conflicting information out there.

NewsCorp have been pushing for it as well, which, as a rule, isn't a good thing, and the rest of our media seem just as confused as the populace.

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"It hasn't been clear how they intend to enforce this."

Haven't read the Bill yet but usually when governments aren't sure of the fine minutiae and or the details are too complex there are often enabling clauses in the legislation that allow regulations to be enacted. This allows ministers and departments to set regulations without the Act being amended.

Has anyone checked the Bill for this?

The government doesn't have to specify how, they just need to specify the consequences of failure to comply.

It's like not selling alcohol to minors, if the merchant (Facebook & co) does so they get heavily fined. If they repeatedly offend they are barred from operating as a business.

Induce sufficient fear in big tech and they will pivot to applying their profit optimizing to legal compliance instead.

Best guess, NewsCorp is pushing for it as Meta is a direct competitor.

Albeit, many 16 year olds are not using social media for news, but it does get them used to social media as there go to site early on.

Why does that matter? That’s a question about the implementation of the law.

You can’t go “I support the law if it’s implemented poorly so I can circumvent it, but I don’t support it if it’s implemented effectively and I can’t circumvent it”

The question of if it should be the law should assume that it’s implemented effectively, if people will only support an ineffective easily circumventable implementation then they don’t actually support the law and should vote against it.

It mostly matters because like all good laws it will likely be used to erode privacy in an effort to enforce it.

In context with the assistance and access act 2018 this is just another step towards the encryption with government backdoors future ASIO have been calling for in order to "protect us"

But what is "effective" in this case? My kids use huge Whatsapp groups as a form of social media, will Whatsapp be banned? Using a VPN to access TikTok from outside Australia is not beyond the skills of a determined kid, will VPNs be banned?

Those details matter to say whether or not this is a good idea, why not wait until you have the answer to those questions before enacting the law? (I think there are no good answers too this, and it's probably better to say this is a job for the parent, not for the government)

But that’s my point exactly. You saying “I only support the law if it’s implemented ineffectigely and my kids can circumvent it”. So what you should just be saying is that you don’t support the law.

You can be saying you support it on the condition that it’s implemented poorly enough that it should be circumventable. That just doesn’t make sense.

No, what I'm saying is, that if you think about it for more than a few minutes you realize there is no way to implement this effectively. If there was a way to do it effectively, I might consider this.

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